Interview: LEEE JOHN!

Here's the very first Friday Night Disco interview...and it's a big one!

Friday Night Disco caught up with one of its all-time heroes, Imagination's Leee John, ahead of his UK tour to launch "FLASHBACK: The Very Best Of Imagination", and chatted about hard graft, the post-disco London club scene, Nile Rodgers, theatricality, UK black music, charity work, jazz-funk, Bobby Farrell and - of course - Ashley and Errol.

Enjoy!

FRIDAY NIGHT DISCO: You seem busy all the time. You’re on Twitter, engaging with fans, you’ve got the launch of the Best Of, you’re editing your documentary, you’ve got the tour coming up. I wanted to ask you firstly about SOS Children's Villages, because that seems to be something you’re really passionate about, and that’s another aspect to your work, so I just wonder what led you to start working with them?

LEEE JOHN: Well, you know, it’s something that I think you should always try and give back if you can, and the situation was that in the 1980s I was part of a charity organisation which gave to children and for many, many years it was coming through my bank account and the funds were just going, and then I was always getting a little picture of this little boy that I was looking after, and he never seemed to change! It was always the same picture I got every year! And, you know, people contribute to different charities all the time, and sometimes you don’t question them. So I was doing this special TV show and wanted to give the money that I was getting to the charity, so I looked into the charity – and it turned out that it was fraudulent. It turned out that it was a con. And not only me but a lot of other people had been duped. I was really, really upset about this, so I stopped everything and I warned a lot of other people about this charity, and this was, like, late 80s. So about 10, 12 years ago, SOS Children asked me if I'd like to be a sponsor or patron, and I told them I’d done charity work before, but in this situation I’d like to see exactly what you do. They said that was no problem, and would I like to visit one of our villages around the world? So I said yes, I’d like to – I think that’d be really cool! And not only did I go out there, I said you know what, I’m gonna document it as well, because it’s important to make sure it’s real, it’s really happening. This is the main thing. So I picked South Africa because I’d been to South Africa before and one of the most eye-opening experiences I’ve ever had in my life. I’d been to Johannesburg and I’d done some stuff with Operation Hunger with Zindzi Mandela, which was really fruitful. And ever since then when I travel – because it’s the music, a lot of people know Imagination’s music around the world, that’s given me an opportunity to actually visit these places. So I’ve been to Eritrea, Angola, Zambia – we took the whole band over and we did a documentary there as well – and I went to Brazil. So that’s great, you know?

FND: It’s interesting because it’s been going on for years and you’re still involved, so it must be incredibly rewarding.

LJ: Oh, it is, and if I get a chance, if I’ve got a show and I’m somewhere, I often find there’s an SOS Village there or something like that, and that’s one of the things that’s very fulfilling. Just to be involved, it’s a personal thing, you know. And each village has ten to twelve little houses, and each house has about ten children, all different ages. It’s one of those scenarios where you see people on the other side, and you see just how privileged and how lucky you are.

FND: You wrote in the Huffington Post about how privileged you felt because you put in so many years of work just to be in the position to go and work with these charities, which brings me back to your work ethic and the notion that everybody should learn the trade from the ground up, rather than to try and fast-track everything. LJ: Yeah, I mean, that’s how I started – in pubs and bingo halls, that’s my beginnings, you know, and I did years and years of sessions, acting, I did loads of stuff. Before Imagination, a lot of people thought, You know, we'll put together, and now, I'm telling everybody that that's not the story. You know, it was very strange because people were never interested in how you got there; I was saying, Before I was even in the group, I was signed to a label when I was 14 - to BMI. I had a history before Imagination, and Imagination was just a bonus to all the work that I'd been working on as a kid. FND: Yeah, and it was looked at as a kind of supergroup at the time, and everyone had a track record, so going into it, I think you were just ready by the time Body Talk came out. LJ: Yeah, by the time we had Body Talk. When I wrote Body Talk, I was thinking, Wow, I've done a classic song here, this could be something really important! So I was very proud and I would say that Body Talk is definitely my beginning. FND: And of course 30 years have passed since that happened - so I was wondering what you thought your situation would be if you were starting all over again now, if Imagination began today. Would it be a different scene? LJ: Oh my God, it would be a lot harder. It would be ten times harder now because the whole demographic has changed, really and truly. It's not the same at it used to be. I mean, we're just not in the same time zone anymore! FND: Do you feel that it's opened things up, having such freely available software everywhere? LJ: Well, everything was analogue for us, you know, very, very analogue. Everything's changed in some ways - like, for example, you emailed me, I emailed you, within 24 hours we can communicate. Years ago it was a lot harder. If I need to do a quick single for somebody, I could just do it on my phone and just send the acapella across and then someone will edit it - amazing! There are all these wonderful things that can be done. There are pros and cons to it. There are a lot of situations where people are really getting things very, very quickly, and they don't have the "knowledge". FND: I know what you mean. And it's made it more democratic, but it's harder to sort out what's really of value. LJ: Well, with the reality shows and stuff like that, some people are just very into getting It quickly, you know? FND: And it's a sink-or-swim situation. Now, Imagination achieved success fairly quickly, because Body Talk was a readymade kind of anthem - so was that an unreal experience, when everything started to happen? LJ: Well, it wasn't an overnight success, because remember, Body Talk was done at the end of 1980 and it went into the clubs. And Morgan Kahn, who was our A&R guy, he worked it very hard, so it didn't actually get into the charts until sometime around April. But the second single, In And Out Of Love, got in quicker, but Body Talk was like, 44 weeks in the charts, for one song, which was amazing. Amazing. FND: Of course, those are really quite slow tracks... LJ: It was one of the slowest that year, yeah.

FND: It's amazing just to hold people with such a deep groove. You’ve said before that In And Out Of Love was, or is, your favourite Imagination tune?

LJ: Yeah, it's one of my favourite tracks, it is.

FND: I think you said that was down to the lyrics and the message. I also love how it has space to breathe, like a lot of Imagination songs which have those long sections where you really get a feel for the groove. I wonder if 12"s had a part in that?

LJ: Well actually, they weren't really 12"s, they were just full versions, where we'd keep it longer and just reprise it toward the end. I like long records. Years ago, it was like that - you'd always have a track on the album which was long, extended, and this was before - well, we had 12" mixes, of course, but you had the instrumental on the other side and what have you. So it wasn't *inspired* by the 12"s; we were just keeping the mood, really.

FND: I see. The clubs were obviously important to you. What were the best clubs back then in London?

LJ: Well, when I was younger, there was a club called Crackers, as a kid I used to go there. On Friday at lunchtime we used to bunk off school and go to Crackers, and then after we left school, they used to make it on a Sunday and a Monday and it'd be great, it had lots of import American soul. There was a club called Bird's Nest. There was a posse of us, like a jazz-funk posse which would go to all these different clubs all over the place. And a lot of them were the musicians of the day, like the guys from Central Line, Light Of The World, we'd all be going to the same clubs, and then, much later on in London there was Legends, we played the Embassy Club, and then there was Monkberry's, a real exclusive club off Jermyn Street, which was great. There was a DJ there, Trevor Shakes, who was a dancer from back in the day. It was really great, a very organic scene.

FND: The jazz-funk side of things was very strong at the time. And did disco mean much to you then?

LJ: Disco music was there, I mean there was the very commercial bubblegum disco, we'd say, but if it had a rhythm and you could dance to it, everybody was into it, so sometimes they'd have the simplest track but the beat was something that everybody would be into, you know. And the more vibrant, the more jazz-funk, you could have African rhythm, or you just had something different. It was about dancing and dressing up and enjoying yourself. It wasn't about gangs or anything like that!

FND: There was a lot of positivity, and that spilled over into the music itself. A lot of Imagination's stuff had a very positive message as well. If I were to really push you, could you sum it up in a soundbite? What was Imagination's "philosophy", or was there ever one philosophy drawing it all together?

LJ: Wow... I mean, my philosophy now is quite different from when I was younger, because it was looking at interviews from when I was younger and obviously you're in a different mindspace! So mine is: Let every moment count - that's what matters for me - and if you believe in yourself, others will believe in you too. With Body Talk, I wrote that on my mum's kitchen table, and who'd have thought that, 30 years later, that lyric would take me around the world, performing so many concerts? I was always that way about my craft. Right now, I'm producing a film. We were there working on it today. So it's just really amazing that I'm comfortable with different areas in my life.

FND: I'm quite interested in the documentary - it looks like you've got 80 different people speaking in it. LJ: No, we've got over a hundred! We're timelining and editing right now as we speak, so it's really non-stop at this point in time. I'm really working hard on it. It's the history of UK black music and it stems from the turn of the century up to the 90s, where there was a lot of support for British black music and then it kind of stopped, the whole industry changed. If you're an American artist, you definitely get the promotion, but when you were a British black artist, you weren't considered as serious. And it's not a gripe, it's just people telling it as it is, the real deal, as it was. Everyone's telling their story, which is amazing. FND: And if there was a turning point where the support died out, or something changed, would you be able to put your finger on it? Was it some time around the development of garage, or 2-step, or...? LG: Well, it was different for me because, for example, with Imagination we had a track called Burnin' Up and a lot of people said, Oh, this is the first House record, because of the way the piano was, it was ahead of its time. Larry Levan in the Paradise Garage used to play Changes and stuff like that. But in my solo career, especially in the 90s, I had hits with Your Mind, Your Body, Your Soul, which was one of the biggest garage records of that time. Before that, I had a big record with Mighty Power of Love, I don't know if you remember that, and that went to number 2 in the Billboard chart. And then in the early 90s, I did a lot of stuff under Johnny X, I had a track called Fantasia which did well underground. I did a lot of underground DJ things, because I'd had the popstar world and I wanted to go a completely different way. So I started producing different artists, writing different things, worked with Arthur Baker and the Backbeat Disciples. Some things I don't want to talk about, because they weren't the greatest of experiences! But I did acting, a lot of diverse things, and I still like to do that too. FND: Which is a long career, because you started off in Doctor Who. LJ: Yeah, well that wasn't the first thing I'd done - I'd done The Chinese Detective before that and I did this thing called Stepping Out and a few other bits and pieces. Recently I did something called Dumar in which I played a lawyer, I think it was last year - time goes so fast! FND: I wanted to chat about two things relating to the documentary. One of them was that Bobby Farrell was interviewed - I wonder if that's bittersweet now that he's passed away? LJ: Well, it was very, very sad, because I loved Bobby to bits - I mean, he was crazy, as we all are in the industry - but it was just one of those things where you think to yourself, you just hope he can survive and just get through it. But he wasn't very well at all, he was having a lot of problems. And we had lots of fun - we went to Tahiti, we did a lot of shows together, we did tours together in France and other places. And it's ironic that I interviewed him, because it was supposed to be one of the other girls, either Maizie or Liz, because they were touring in the same area and I thought it was going to be one of them. So I took a cameraman down and thought, You know what, they live not far from London - it'd be great to hear the Boney M. experience. And I discovered it was Bobby. Of course, when he passed away, I spoke to his daughter and I said, I've got this footage, it's in honour of your father, and it was his life story. It was beautiful, all he said, funny moments and sad moments. They had a huge ceremony and in the actual event that they had for Bobby, it was used at the start, in the middle and at the end, and it was like a complete conclusion of his whole life. And there I was on this huge big screen interviewing Bobby Farrell, and I'm at his service. Very surreal and very sad. And we miss him madly, we really miss him, because he was so fun, and when you're on the road it's like a family and I've made some great, great friends. I've had a big European experience, because even this year I toured with Kool & The Gang, Earth, Wind & Fire, Chic and Sister Sledge - and they all thought I was American! I'd been a big fan of theirs for a long time, so yeah, it's just really wild.

FND: You mentioned Chic recently, when they were in London. LJ: He (Nile Rodgers) was doing a show at the Roundhouse and he asked me to do a show for him, because he didn't think he'd make it in time and they were going to do it afterwards. And, lo and behold, there he was in the audience, dancing to my new single Krash. It was amazing. FND: He seems to be quite attached to Ireland as well. He keeps coming back! LJ: Oh, when is he coming back? FND: Actually, he's coming back at the end of this month. And you're hitting the road too. How long has it taken to get your band together? Have you been working with the same people for a while? LJ: Well, the band - Dr. John Watson, he's been working with me quite a while now, since the late 80s. My bass player, he's been working with me since the mid 90s - Alexis Contouris, he's the bass player. My guitar player John, he's been with me now 2, 3 years on and off. I've got about 4 different backing singers - Lorraine's been working with me for nearly 15 years, something like that. Percussion, well, Ali G's been with me for the last 2, 3 years. So most of the people have been with me for a very long time. FND: So there's a stability there; it's the whole family thing again. LJ: Oh yeah, yeah. I tend to have the same people with me for a long time. If there's a problem, we try and work it out! And it's great. FND: Do you see another tour happening next year? LJ: Oh yeah, this is just a precursor. I'll be doing a lot more shows in the UK. I've got festivals, I've got some more stuff I'm doing with Earth, Wind & Fire and also with Kool & The Gang. And hopefully with Chic as well. FND: And you're recording a lot of stuff at the moment. LJ: Yeah, I'm doing stuff with Junior Giscombe and also Don-E. I've got new tracks for a new album too, which I've got to really sort out! And I've got the new single, Krash.

FND: You've got a great sequinned gold jacket on in the Krash video, which makes me think back to the things you used to wear in Imagination's early days. What was the most outrageous thing you ever wore onstage? LJ: Oh, I can't tell you that! I wore every outfit known to man, except for a bear suit, but... I look back on the past very fondly, and everybody was really dressing at that time, because we took a club culture and it was a time when everybody was really pushing the buttons on fashion and letting go, so Imagination weren't really alone in it. The mainstream adapted it and took it to another level, and we were on TV and that's what did it. We were at the ending of disco, so we were more part of the funk movement first off, and in France they would call it Disco-funk. It was one of those things where anything goes, to a degree. But it wasn't that at all - we wanted to have a good presentation, having a theatrical sense of everything. And I still do! I still try and give the best performances, I think it's very important. FND: And the visual element is vital. LJ: I take great pains to make sure that, visually, there's something there for people to see. FND: For the documentary, you spoke to Jeffrey Daniel, a fellow musician and dancer in another theatrical band. I know other figureheads from the 90s scene feature in there, alongside singers and DJs from the 70s. Who else are we likely to see in the film? LJ: Oh my goodness, well in the 80s alone, we have Loose Ends, Janet Kay, The Cool Notes, Soul II Soul, The Pasadenas, Roachford, to the actual A&R guys that signed people like Terence Trent D'Arby, people like that. From the 70s, we've got The Foundations, Eddy Grant, Osibisa, The Real Thing. A lot of DJs from way back in the day. Morgan Khan, my A&R guy. Beverly Knight's on there, Shara Nelson. A lot of people! It's a snapshot, because it's really so quick. I spent today working on it. FND: How do you know what to leave out? LJ: It's really telling the story and trying to do it as best you can! FND: When do you plan to release it? LJ: What we're going to do is have a 6-part series and a 90-minute version. We'll try to get all the festivals. It's a lot of work we're putting in, but we love it. We're doing the 70s now, we're working really fast. So we're doing a 25-minute edit so that we can raise a little bit of money for it.

FND: Finally, do you see much of Ashley or Errol these days? LJ: Well, Errol was out there doing a tribute band the last time I heard, and playing sometimes with Shalamar. And Ashley was in Canada, then recently he went to the Philippines and he had a music school, teaching and working on an application for the voice, which is great. But I haven't worked with Errol since '86 and I haven't worked with Ashley since 1989. That's a long, long time. And I think it's gonna take a long time for them to get back to doing what I do! I haven't really kept up - I just have so much on. I used to try and keep in contact; I was the chief cook and bottle-washer, and I tried so much to keep up, but now it's just too much! FND: Well, looking to the future, after the tour and the promotion of the documentary, have you got plans outside music? Have you considered an autobiography? LJ: I started to write, and my iPad got stolen, with all my notes in it, but I am going to! We're doing a book for Flashback, we're looking for the right publisher for that and we have some interest. There's probably going to be a CD compilation with that. There's a lot of exciting things happening - I'm just keeping quiet about it right now because I want everything to be completed, then we'll move on to the next chapter!